In our priorities. Leaders who know their priorities lead with what is important to them. They give their emotional intensity and continuous focus with every resource to support what they want to obtain. How you spend your time shows you what is important to you.

In our persistence. Leaders who are persistent lead with everything they have. They don’t leave any stone unturned and they don’t sit around feeling sorry for themselves but take responsibility for what they want and show determination till the very end. It is not what your life takes from you; it’s what you give to your life that counts.

In our passion. Passionate leaders apply all their efforts, all their best skills, and all their capabilities with everything they have. Goodness is good but passion is much greater.

In our patience. Patient leaders are not weak but emotionally strong. Good things may not come to those who wait, but great things come to those who have patience. Masterpieces take time. Patience is power and patience takes practice. There are many obstacles that come our way, and unless we have patience, we will react instead of responding. Patience is the attribute that helps us attain what we want and frees us from our knee-jerk reactions.

In our principles. Those who lead with principles know what is right and what is wrong. Every time we make a decision we are either moving toward our principles or away from them. Our principles are our values; they affect every direction of our life and leading.

Life has a way of throwing us into situations that test us, evaluate us, and assess us.

Leaders who do not waver in times of struggle, those are the leaders who are truly exceptional.

Lead From Within: The art of leadership is not without struggle, those that lead from a strong foundation are unshakable, they have endurance in the most grueling training that life has to offer.

Lolly Daskal is the president and founder of Lead From Within a consulting firm specializing in executive coaching and customized leadership programs Connect with Lolly Daskal

22 Responses to “The Art Of Leadership Is Not Without Struggle”

Sunil Jogdeo

19. Aug, 2014

Hello Lolly, nice piece. `Masterpiece takes time` is the point I have taken from this article. A great leader is a masterpiece in himself / herself, and hence to be a value based leader is going to take time. In one of my articles on Linked In, I wrote leaders cannot be leaders by designations. There is a trend of bestowing designations to take care of attrition or to hold a person in given job. Nothing really changes except the title for such people, and people are happy with it. These are pseudo leaders perhaps. I also understood that to make my reading a masterpiece, i need to take more time Thank you again for value adding post..

You wrote, “Life is a variable event for everyone and our leadership is not something we are born with, but is revealed in our everyday struggles and strain.” I would add by everyday people as well.

We don’t have to look into our history books for leaders like Lincoln, Kennedy, or King. We can often find them in our neighborhood schools, grocery stores, fire departments and where we work. Leadership is a calling, but it takes a special person to step up and answer.

Greetings, Lolly-a wonderful reminder that without struggle, there is no growth. When we lift weights, resistance stretches the muscles. When we resist something, anything, ultimately we are resisting Acceptance…but the growth happens when we resist Non-Acceptance.
…When we learn to embrace our struggles, embrace our reality, embrace what has happened, embrace what is happening, embrace who we are, embrace our feelings, embrace our setbacks, we can cultivate gratitude, from gratitude we can find the energy to be fearless and hopeful… like Charlie Brown… taking another kick at the football. Great post!

Struggles can make our break some of us. All to often we attempt to avoid any struggles that might come our way in an attempt to avoid pain. This reminds me of my little seven year old daughter. She sometimes complain of pain in her legs, come to find out what she has is growing pains, to stop the pain would retard her growth. I agree that the art of leadership is not without struggles.

Thanks Lolly for another “wisdom post” to cultivate our souls and give us pause for reflection…going within to then leadfromwithin.

You know so well the value of struggles throughout our career-life journey we humans experience across each of our nine life roles; it’s these life struggles that truly shape us, focus us, and allow us to search for the core values that ultimately guide us “home”. Frankl taught us how life is unconditional in its gift of meaning to ALL people. Certainly the majority of meaning evolves from our many struggles, each a special gift waiting to be unwrapped to let its healing fragrance permeate our life and those around us in magical ways. Love you dearly Lolly,
Aloha nui EdC

Great teaching and evidence that everything in life is a struggle and sacrifice to get the best in a cause. In this case to lead others we must have self-discipline without neglecting our morals and ethics bases.

Or, in other words, authenticity. At Sage, the 3 watch words are value, velocity and veracity. It takes wisdom to understand the value, courage to create and sustain momentum, and veracity to operate from the center of your values.

Great article! Ididn’t know what happened to him. Good axample, indeed! I agree that leaders don’t think like followers because they are ready to sacrifice. No matter what happened they dedicate their life to the struggle. They never give up their target!

Inspirational Post Lolly,
I always gain a great deal of inspiration, motivation and the will keep pushing forward every time I am reminded of our Great President Abraham Lincoln’s persistence and his struggle to become in my opinion one of, if not the greatest President of our Great and Wonderful Nation: “The United States of America”!
Always looking forward to your next blog post!

I think it all starts with the authentic leadership piece and being clear about your principles. The other three Ps are very relevant too. Your principles will help to anchor you as a leader so that you have a robust basis to help you with the complex decision making we sometimes have to make.

Great story and thanks for sharing! I can’t help but think it is someone’s character that gets them through the struggles and makes them strong. That there is something in their make-up that provides them with vision and persistence. Perhaps, it is their DNA and lineage that gives them the drive. I come from a long line of Irish fighters and see how it compels me without my doing anything to conjure it up. And at times, I wish it would switch off but is part of my nature!